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greens here. Every day new evidence comes to light that demonstrates Deepwater Horizon was an accident waiting to happen—the result not just of BP s internal problems but mechanical mistakes and a failure of regulation. And most damning, oil industry executives themselves admit that they can t really respond to a blown well thousands of feet beneath the surface of the ocean. That much is obvious every day—and it seems nothing short of crazy to continue digging holes deep in the ocean that we can t fix. We need time to make that right.But Feldman rejects that argument in his ruling:If some drilling equipment parts are flawed, is it rational to say that all are? Are all airplanes a danger because one was? All oil tankers like Exxon Valdez? All trains? All mines? That sort of thinking seems heavy-handed, and rather overbearing.Yet the truth is we still know far too little about how deepwater drilling is conducted and regulated—and what we ve discovered the since the Deepwater Horizon sunk on April 20 is not reassuring. As significant as deepwater drilling is to the economy of the Gulf coast, it s hardly comparable to the effect of grounding all American air traffic—and it could be blunted with aid. Nor would putting a temporary hold on 33 deepwater drilling sites in the Gulf end the oil industry there—especially since there are still 3,600 oil and natural gas production platforms left in the Gulf. And while a six-month moratorium might lead some oil companies to move deepwater rigs elsewhere in the world, it s a little hard to imagine that the international energy players—increasingly locked out of other deposits by aggressive national energy companies—will simply leave the Gulf behind for good.Judging from Feldman s ruling, the government might have blown its case. He points out several problems,[url=http://www.lululemononsales.com]lulu lemon outlet[/url], including the fact that several of the engineering experts who peer-reviewed the Interior Department s report on deepwater drilling latter said they were not in favor of a six-month moratorium. And Feldman wasn t the only one to detect a hint of political motivation in the government s moratorium. But the safety issues won t go away—and it s worrying those fears were simply rejected out of hand. What does it say about our system that even the President of the United States can t pause Big Oil s dangerous deepwater drilling, said Larry Schweiger, the president of the National Wildlife Federation, in a statement. This ruling demonstrates that our entire system—from acquiescent regulators to apologetic members of Congress to a compliant judiciary—are tilted in Big Oil s favor. Changing that system may be a lot harder than we thought.Update: Kate Sheppard of Mother Jones points out that Feldman—appointed by President Ronald Reagan—had up to $15,000 in stock in the drilling company Transocean as recently as 2008. Of course, as a judge in Gulf coast,[url=http://www.lululemononsales.com]lululemon locations[/url], Feldman is hardly alone in owning oil stocks—37 of 64 federal judges in the region have some ties to the oil sector. That s what happens in a region that is so dominated by a single industry—it becomes impossible to strip away corporate influence.A cross post from TIME s Wellness blog:The H1N1 flu pandemic last year came out of nowhere. Well,[url=http://www.lululemononsales.com]lululemon attire[/url], not exactly—H1N1 first emerged in human beings in Mexico. But that wasn t where most influenza experts were looking. The focus had been on southeast Asia, where the H5N1 avian flu had been infecting—and killing—human beings for the past few years. Most flu pandemics begin in that part of the world, where dense populations of people and animals comingle. H1N1 was different, however, and the world paid the price.But we may not have learned our lesson. A new study in the June 17 edition of Science makes the case that there has been too little followup genetic surveillance of the H1N1 virus—and that we could be vulnerable to new strains. A team of researchers from Hong Kong sequenced viruses found in pigs in the city s largest slaughterhouse over the past year and a half. They found that the H1N1 virus that had causeRelated articles: